


That Island I Just Can't Reach

by Greenninjagal



Series: The Faux-Butterfly Effect [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug, Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Based on Miraculous Ladybug, Deceit is the Fox hero, Dystopian America, Gun Violence, I am weak for that best friends anxceit, Kinda, Logan Roman Patton and Remus are mentioned, M/M, Sympathetic Deceit Sanders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 22:28:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21187016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greenninjagal/pseuds/Greenninjagal
Summary: Virgil Storm hasn’t talked to Dante Ethan Ekans in two years. And yet, here he stands right in front of Virgil, dressed up like that fox themed menace that’s been terrorizing the Shopping District for the past week, and he’s holding out a box out to Virgil and asking him to help save the world.***aka Virgil doesn't know how to tell his former best friend that magical girl transformations do not stop real world bullets





	That Island I Just Can't Reach

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Long Past Dawn](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21095456) by [Hufflepup_Productions](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hufflepup_Productions/pseuds/Hufflepup_Productions). 

Virgil Storm hasn’t talked to Dante Ethan Ekans in two years. And yet, here he stands right in front of Virgil, dressed up like that fox themed menace that’s been terrorizing the Shopping District for the past week, and he’s holding out a box out to Virgil and asking him to help save the world.

Part of him can’t believe this is real.

It’s most likely some sort of trick. 

Dante had always been really good mind games. Ever since they were kids and he had learned that he could get what he wanted by telling his dad that his mom had specifically said no to it. Virgil had lost count of the fights he had started with just flick of his tongue, of the verbal sparring he had engaged in during class that left most of his opponents scratching their heads, of the consequences he had dodged by just a hair’s breadth.

At one point, Virgil and him had been inseparable.

Virgil thinks that’s why he knows who it is under that offensive orange mask. It’s so _ obvious. _ There’s no one else who smiles like that, who’s eyes glisten so excitedly when they leap straight into danger, who delights in trickery and illusions the way that Dante did. The way he stands is so Dante-like that its almost painful to look at. Virgil almost doesn’t understand why he’s the only one who sees it.

But then he remembers that not everyone had a massive crush on their best friend.

“Virgil Storm,” The Fox says-- what was he going by? It was some sort of pun wasn’t it?-- “Will you help me save the world?”

Its absurd. Absolutely insane.

“Are you stupid?” Virgil blurts out. Which is probably not the smartest thing ever because Dante has a flute that doubles as a bo-staff that he most certainly knew now to wield and they hadn’t exactly parted like friends.

“What--” Dante blinks like he had been ten steps ahead and Virgil had just done something that threw off his entire plan. “You do know I’m literally giving you the power of a god. Just take the broach--”

He nudges it towards Virgil’s face, and Virgil is suddenly flooded with anger beyond his comprehension. He doesn’t really know what its about, but suddenly his hand flies up and he slaps the box right out of Dante’s hand.

“Are you stupid?!” Virgil snarls again. “No stop! This isn’t about the fucking box, Dante!” 

The Fox hero freezes.

Virgil thinks its the first time he’s had Dante’s attention all to himself in two years. Its terrifying. Its invigorating. Virgil wants to cry.

Had he really missed those gold and brown eyes that much?

“This isn’t a game, Dante! Florida is under attack!” Virgil shouts at him, “Those are people with actual guns! That’s the actual American Government! And no fancy orange super suit is gonna stop an M4 carbine! You’re gonna die!”

Virgil’s hands are shaking, he realizes. His entire body is shuddering at the thought. Because as soon as its out of his mouth that they only thing he can think about is Dante lying on the ground with a gaping wound in his chest and his blood and life leaking out of him. All he can think about is that smile falling blank, and those pale lips splattered with blood, and those eyes-- those special, mismatched, and mischievous eyes-- losing that light they danced so freely with.

All he can think about is Dante dying.

“I’m not going to die,” Dante says dismissively.

“You don’t know that!” Virgil wants to pull out his hair. How can he brush off the danger like? How can he have such a disregard for his own life?

“Virgil,” Dante says again. Had Virgil’s name always sounded so foreign coming from him? Or maybe its just how softly the other says it now compared to the way it had been screamed the last time? Had one argument really shattered everything they had?

Dante reaches his arms out and gently grabs Virgil's shoulders, “Listen to me. Have I ever led you astray before?”

Virgil thinks of the time they were seven and Dante had gotten him bit by a dog because he said “it’s obviously harmless!” and Virgil had believed him, of the time they were eleven and Dante had said “No one will catch us!” and they had both been arrested an hour later in the middle of spray painting the wall of the not-quite-so-abandoned warehouse, of the time when they were fourteen and Virgil had beat out Logan for the highest grade in history class because Dante had slipped him the answers and the next time they had tried to do it Logan had snitched on him out of spite--

“I am not going to die,” Dante says confidently, “You are going to help make sure I don’t die by providing me with support.”

Virgil shakes his head. He feels sick to his stomach, and cold despite the way he’s sweating through his sweat shirt.

“No!” He croaks, “Find someone else. Anyone else.”

“I don’t trust anyone else like I trust you.”

A laugh breaks the feverish feeling he has. Because it’s insane, absurd, _stupid._ Dante can trust him? That’s got to be the worst joke he’s ever made. 

“No!” Virgil yells again, “You made it very clear what you think of me, Dante!” So clear, in fact, that, Virgil still lays awake at night remembering the way that Dante had screamed his name and called him a traitor when Virgil had just been trying to keep him alive to see the end of the week.

Dante’s pale underneath that mask. It looks like for the first time his silvertongue doesn’t have a response. It tries, though, fluttering behind those perfect white teeth of Dante’s and choking on too many syllables. 

There used to be a time when Virgil knew what he was thinking with just a glance.

That time is long gone. And as much as Virgil misses it, he doesn’t think it can ever come back. Not when every time they talk there's _ something _ between them: a door, a phone, a _ bright orange mask _. 

There’s a primordial fear in him that sparks when something pops into the air between them that sounds remotely like an English word and Virgil realizes that he _ doesn’t _want to know what Dante is thinking. He pushes himself away from Dante and the Fox lets him go.

Maybe its the shock? Dante doesn’t usually let go of things that easily.

He pretends like he doesn’t miss the warmth the second its gone. Instead Virgil’s arms wrap around his body and he hugs the feeling of _ wrongness _out of his body.

“I’m not doing this,” Virgil says, “I’m not helping you_ kill yourself, _Dante. I can’t do that.” 

For a moment, Virgil thinks he reached him. Like Dante’s been on some distant island since his mother’s funeral and Virgil’s been paddling towards that island but every time he gets close the island is somehow further away-- For a moment Virgil’s thinks he’s finally landed on the beach and there’s sand between his toes, and Dante is _ right there _ on the shore ready to come back _ home-- _

For a moment Virgil thinks that Dante will take off that mask and come with him to find somewhere to hide. 

But the moment passes, and Dante leans to the ground and picks up that box. His hands are shaking. His lips purse but he nods at Virgil.

“Okay,” he says. He flips the box in the air. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Virgil repeats.

Dante looks at him. Virgil looks back.

“I’m sorry,” Dante says. “I shouldn’t have asked you to do this for me. That was my bad.”

Virgil’s stomach jumps straight to his throat.

“You want to stay and hide and I get that, Virge, I do.” He says and Virgil thinks he really doesn’t. “There’s safety in the shadows and in keeping your head down. But I can’t do that. Not when there are people out there who are begging for a hero-- and I’m a pretty crappy hero, but I’m the only one they’ve got.”

The necklace he’s wearing glistens in the sunlight that peaks down at them. Virgil thinks he remembers a public announcement going out about how much it was worth if someone got it and turned it in. Millions probably.

“I’m going to save those people, Virgil.” Dante says. 

In a fluid movement Dante has that flute bo staff drawn and he slams it into the ground and vaults himself into the air. Virgil’s jaw drops as he watches him catch a windowsill and pushes off to the other wall and bounces back and forth until he’s on the roof of the building and dancing in the sunlight completely.

It makes him look like a traffic cone. 

The Fox hero-- Dante-- spins the flute in his hand and stares down at Virgil with an unreadable emotion on his face. 

“I’m going to save all of America,” Dante says. 

Confidently.

Certainly. 

Virgil wants to scream at him.

But his jaw feels rusted shut and his heart is beating way too fast in his chest. And even if it weren’t, Dante disappears from his line of vision, running the roof tops so very fluently.

And Virgil is left all alone in the back alley, hugging himself and trying to convince himself that he did the right thing. He can’t watch Dante die, he won’t encourage Dante to go gallivanting across the state trying to find a fight that he can’t win.

He’s alone in the darkness.

And its the most real thing he’s ever felt.

***

The Faux Fox was not a hero. 

His debut was robbing a high end jewelry store by filling the area with a imagined bright green gas and waltzing in behind the counter while people were frantically pressing scarfs to their faces and running away from the gas. 

He wasn’t a villain either.

His second appearance had him shutting down a drug ring shipment by terrorizing the grunts with visions of zombies until they turned themselves in.

They called him an anti hero, a vigilante, a menace.

He stopped a bank robbery, shut down a child trafficking ring, exposed a corrupt politician.

Virgil had followed the news stories since they had started popping up. He had his phone set up to notify him any time Faux Fox made the news and he stopped whatever he was doing the second his phone dinged.

The day that Virgil talked to Dante for the first time in two years, he watched from that alley on his phone as Wyvern made his debut beside the Fox and together they ran circles around the aggravated soldiers who were holding hostages in the center of the shopping area in an attempt to draw out the Fox.

Weeks later, he watches huddled in his own locker as school as Zeal turned his schoolmates' fears into protective monsters that drove off the solider occupation of their school.

And weeks after that, Virgil sees for himself the moment that Nectar shows up in that unholy yellow outfit and challenges the Faux Fox to a duel right in the middle of the city where the Fox had just finished emptying a building that was on fire. 

And two days after that, Virgil notes, that Swarm looks exactly like Nectar, but with a white streak in his hair, as he runs for cover inside a shop when the occupying soldiers decided it would be easier to off both the bee wielder and the fox wielder together and take the miraculous from their bodies. 

Virgil thinks about the day in the alley a lot. Every time he goes to school, every time he runs from a fight, every time he sees the color orange and a news headline. He thinks about how it used to be Dante and him against the world, about how Teachers used to dread getting both of them in the class together, about how Virgil moved schools and he probably shouldn’t have but it had been easier to change schools than to face Dante again. 

He thinks about how Dante said, “I don’t trust anyone else like I trust you” with brazen, raw honesty and “I’m going to save America” with unbridled confidence.

And sometimes when he thinks about that, Virgil’s eyes flick over to the tiny box that had appeared on his pillow after that day.

If he had half a mind he would take that box and march over to the mansion Dante lived in when he wasn’t busy defying laws, where the hired help watching the cameras would wave him through because him and Dante had been _ that _close, and he would throw that box right back at Dante and tell him where he could shove his superhero fantasy.

But that would be talking to him face-to-face with nothing between them. No door, no phone, no masks.

Just Dante on an island he doesn’t want to leave and Virgil in his boat trying to convince him to come back to civilization before he dies alone.

(But thats not true anymore now, is it? Because Virgil’s seen the way that the Faux Fox and Wyvern so a fist bump after they do good work, the way that Zeal grabs the Fox in hugs and sweet smiles, the way that Nectar can finish the Fox’s sentences and Swarm acts on them without hesitation. Dante’s not alone on his island anymore.)

Some day, Virgil thinks, he’ll get the courage to open the box.

(Some day, Virgil thinks, he’ll understand how that island could be safer than his boat)

But for now, he listens the news reports on his phone with his legs curled up to his chest and his hands buried in the sleeves of his jacket and watches the white _ Pieris _greet the flowers he planted in the flower box outside his window.


End file.
